15 Simple Tips For Improving Local SEO – Forbes

1. Insert Keywords Across Multiple Listings

Making your brand visible through a variety of local listings is important to local SEO. Insert your local keywords into unique descriptions across multiple listings, make sure that your photos are current, and always include your business category. Once you compile a list, promote it: Reviews are essential not only to boost rankings but also to encourage viewers to take action. – Ahmad Kareh, Twistlab Marketing

2. Get Local Coverage

The best way to improve your SEO is to appear in major publications since these are indexed high on Google. If you’d like to improve your local SEO, target top local publications for coverage and create and foster relationships with local journalists who will cover your news on an on-going business. Once you get that coverage, you’ll notice these links will help improve your local SEO immensely. – Ayelet Noff, Blonde 2.0

3. Get New, High-Quality Links

The quantity and quality of links directed to your website have an increasingly impactful effect on its local search engine rankings. Consider giving a presentation to business students at a local university, lead a discussion at regional business organization meetings or publish an article online, and use those opportunities to have the associated organizations link to the company’s website. – Jody Resnick, Trighton Interactive

4. Improve Internal Linking Structure

Most local businesses have poor website architecture, often with important pages only being linked to from the main navigation or footer. Add internal links where relevant from within your pages’ content, including blog posts, informational pages and key service pages. We consistently see lifts in rankings (maps and organic) after improving websites’ internal linking structure. – Kyle Sanders, CWR SEO

5. Optimize Title Tags With Local Keyword

To help specific pages rank locally, optimize your title tags with the local keyword. For example, your title tag could be “basement renovations Chicago.” This signals to search engines that this page is directly tied to Chicago, and will thus be more likely to show up in searches from your geographic area and explicit searches for the local term. – Brock Murray, seoplus+

6. Claim And Optimize Your Google My Business Profile

One of the simplest things you can do to improve your local SEO is claiming your Google My Business profile. This is a business listing that shows up for local searches. You need to have a physical location and street address (not a P.O. box) to set up or claim a listing. Optimizing this profile with category, contact information, images and business hours gives a big boost in local search. – Chris Dreyer, Rankings.io

7. Create Local Business Profiles

Make it easier for searchers to find you by establishing a presence on popular review sites for your industry such as Google+, Yelp and Yellow Pages. Each local profile you create acts like another “platform” for local visitors to land on. It’s an incredible opportunity to improve local SEO and demonstrate social proof, which will help drive people back to your website. – Solomon Thimothy, OneIMS

8. Multi-Local Brands Should Build Hyper-Localized Content

For multi-local brands, focus on developing hyper-local content. Many brands have the same location page content for all locations. Instead, make every location page unique. Don’t just find and replace the city name. Do some research. Make it useful, relevant and engaging to each location’s neighborhood. – Dan Golden, Be Found Online